Grist List

Houses made of bacteria could save 800 million tons of CO2

What would the world be like if we could build houses out of bacteria? For starters, the story of the Three Little Pigs might have ended very differently. But biomanufactured bricks, made of a mixture of sand and non-pathogenic bacteria, could also help house people in developing countries while saving almost 800 million tons of CO2 every year.

Critical List: Floods herald largest Gulf dead zone on record; the Senate hearts ethanol

Louisiana fishermen can't catch a break. Flooding on the Mississippi River could create the largest dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico on record.

Louisiana, in general, can't catch a break. A plant that blends chemicals used in oilfields exploded on Tuesday.

The Senate decided against ending subsidies for corn-based ethanol in a vote that split, not just along party lines, but also between Big Ag states and everyone else.

Google's newest clean energy investment hands $280 million to a solar company that leases panels to customers.

Eliminating soot would save 2.5 million lives a year, slow climate change

“Black carbon," the product of incomplete combustion of everything from wood to diesel fuel, isn’t just something you put on Mary Poppins chimney sweeps to make them look picturesque. It also contributes to climate change, and it will turn your lungs into something from an anti-smoking PSA faster than you can ask for just one more spoonful of sugar. The flip side is that we could save a lot of lives with just a little cleanup.

Your tax dollars subsidize the sh*t out of coal

If you're a fan of a certain dried-leaves-boiled-in-water-related political party, you might believe that renewable energy is the recipient of huge amounts of government largesse, and that the first thing we should do once we get our guy or gal into office is slash all that wasteful spending.

But wait! It turns out coal gets way, way more subsidies for electricity generation.

A thrilling tale of bicycle revenge

K.C., who writes the blog A Girl and Her Bike, is a girl with a bike. She's also a District of Columbia police officer. But the second part's not so obvious when she's riding on a Capital Bikeshare bike, out of uniform and just trying to get home from work. Which is probably why some […]

The ‘Dirty Dozen’: Which fruits and vegetables have the most pesticides?

The Environmental Working Group has released an updated list of the Dirty Dozen, the fruits and vegetables with the worst pesticide levels. Drumroll please: Apples Celery Strawberries Peaches Spinach Nectarines (imported) Grapes (imported) Sweet bell peppers Potatoes Blueberries (domestic) Lettuce Kale/collard greens If you can, it's worth shelling out a little extra for the organic […]

This is what the history of climate change research looks like

Need at-a-glance visual evidence of that "scientific consensus on climate change" we keep talking about? Skeptical Science has put together an interactive visualization of 4,000 peer-reviewed climate science papers. You can drag the year slider around to see how research changes over time. And it gets even more interactive! The site also lets you see […]

Buy a half-gallon of sugar water at KFC, give a dollar to diabetes research

I honestly didn't believe this one was for real at first. No way even KFC, purveyors of a sandwich that uses fried meat as a delivery mechanism for fried meat, would seriously market a soda size called the "mega jug." And even if they did, they'd never have the chutzpah to donate "mega jug" dollars […]

Bill Gates plans to get gas from your butt. (No, really.)

Bill Gates' latest clean energy investment gives a whole new meaning to the term "natural gas." The Gates Foundation is putting $1.5 million towards developing a "Next-Generation Urban Sanitation Facility" in Accra, Ghana. The facility takes human poop and turns it into biodiesel and methane, the same stuff natural gas companies are so eagerly pumping […]